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General Election

One day campaigns and calls for Theresa May to sling it are great at galvanizing support, but if the next election isn’t within the next six months, we run the risk of running out of steam.

Words have power that is clear, but words and actions working in unison will lay the foundation for the kind of change we need to see in our society. Which is why it is unsustainable in the long run to keep up momentum indefinitely.

Why? Because if there are no results, people will grow bored, people drop out, and slowly but surely the momentum slows to a crawl before going in to reverse. We have momentum on our side, at the moment, and no doubt the Tories will be trying to delay until the winds change in their favour.

So what can we do to help sustain activity, to keep our momentum up?

We need to adopt a more community minded, grassroots approach to our campaigning – non traditional forms of campaigning which seek to build up networks within communities, and effect real change within them.

It’s great marching to end homelessness, or against the harsh reality of the cuts, those kind of public displays of peoples anger, and dissatisfaction with the system are integral but you hardly ever see immediate results.

Contrast a march against homelessness with a Labour led drive to support the homeless within their communities, to alleviate the harsh realities of the cuts. When you see that a homeless man is going to get a roof over his head, or isn’t going to go hungry that night, you see a direct return on your political capital.

When you are bringing your politics to life through your work in your community and help stop a family getting evicted, or put food on a single mothers table, so neither her or her child go hungry that night – you see results. Politics in action effecting change on a community level, which feeds back into a national narrative.

Not only this but it is through these networks of resistance that we can sustain momentum, we see small successes, thus keeping people engaged politically. While at the same time engaging with the people that a) need our help the most and b) we need to have a political voice c) providing the apparatus/network for future political work

We need to be radical, we need to be innovative. Combine the social, community and the political, and provide cross community solutions – you have a presence, you are fighting back at the system, and you’re carrying out practical politics.

History is littered with examples of it being successful, and it is a political necessity in this country already. People on the bread line can’t wait to the next election, a disabled person house bound due to cuts, cannot wait to the next election. The people who are suffering most cannot afford to wait, and we shouldn’t leave them behind.

While momentum is on our side, while we have the Tories on the run, it is the perfect opportunity to expand our political activity and get out into our communities supporting those in need, with our actions and deeds.

Theresa May, you should have stayed at home yesterday
Ah-ha words can’t describe the election and the way you lied
These games you play they’re going to end with Tory tears some day
Ah-ha Theresa May it shouldn’t ever have to end this way
It’s 53′ and that’s the year that it’s always been
We got your message outside downing street
Conditions normal and you’re staying put
Theresa May, is Thatcher proud of her clone today
Ah-ha the stability you give, it’s never going to fade away
Theresa May, it shouldn’t ever have to end this way
Ah-ha Theresa May, you shouldn’t have taken our dreams away
It’s 53′ and that’s the year that it’s always been
We got your message outside downing street
Conditions normal and you’re staying put
Theresa May, is Thatcher proud of her clone today
Ah-ha the stability you give, it’s never ever going to fade away

As the dust of the election begins to settle one thing is obvious, we’ve been duped! With the Tories being propped up by the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party), their election attacks on Labour over a coalition of chaos, or a Sturgeon puppet master reveal that no lie is too great or too small if it will hand them the keys to the kingdom.

Cast your mind back if you will to the days before election night to the Tory campaign and its mastermind strategy (so mastermind they tried copying 2015 *cough* coalition of chaos). We were warned that voting for Labour would mean a coalition of chaos, a weak Labour government propped up by the likes of the SNP. We were told that Sturgeon would be the puppet master pulling all Corbyn’s strings. So afraid they thought this would make us that we would turn out in our droves to vote for them, this repackaged project fear not only failed but it looks like the shoe is now on the other foot.

Theresa May couldn’t have made the choice any clearer:
“The alternative which is Jeremy Corbyn propped up by the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Nationalists presiding over this coalition of chaos”
Well it looks like there was one alternative she didn’t tell the electorate about, and that is her regressive alliance with the DUP, her very own coalition of the duped. If ever a sound bite came back round and bit you on the backside, this is it.

The DUP the political wing of the unionist paramilitaries, a party that actively tried to sabotage the peace process, are the Tories now terrorist sympathisers? Is May a terrorist enabler? The same DUP that is full of creationists, that is against women and LGBTQ+ rights? Are we suppose to believe that is a better alternative to a Lab-Lib-SNP progressive alliance.

Could it get any worse than a ConDUPe regressive alliance, and their coalition of the damned?

Let me start this blog by saying well done to everyone that had the courage and nerve to put themselves forward in local or national elections for Left Unity, while the results may have not reflected the hard work and dedication you showed, you deserve praise for having the balls to put your head above the parapet.

This article however is not going to be kind on Left Unity and its involvement in the elections, for they were an absolute disaster. Some of us within the party argue, albiet unsuccessfully at the folly of rushing into national and in some cases local election politics, when so much had yet to be achieved.

I personally argued for a local election focus, as if any network or fight back is going to be waged against this system, it will start at the bottom of communities.

Left Unity however first and foremost sought to be a social movement, it sought to ride the wave or if need be create the wave that would turn the tide in the battle for that which communities the length and breadth of the country hold dear.

Which is why many of us myself included, were distraught at the direction and turn Left Unity had started to take, it changed course dramatically and begun sailing straight towards the rocky waters of electoral politics without a care in the world for the direction of the political winds.

The forces of political nature were therefore harsh and unforgiving as socialists shamed themselves yet again in England in an utter massacre. As we rounded up to take part in our bi-decade self-flegellation that sees us humiliated and shamed.

This experiment has been an expensive failure, and a harsh lesson for Left Unity to learn, with members dropping out and abandoning us because of our performance, or in some cases the despair at not seeing the change and breath of fresh air we had hoped the party to be, materalise in any meaningful way.

What is done cannot be undone and it is how we seek to get out of the hole that we blindly and willingly dug ourselves into that will define the next five years for us.

How long will we keep doing the same old things and expecting fresh and new results? We want to build a successful party, we want to or at least I am fighting to improve communities because I don’t want people to starve, I don’t want people to be forced to live in shame, I don’t want my friends to go cold in the winter.

Yet I am dismayed at the complete and utter disconnect that the left keeps showing with the communities of this land, we keep doing failed and destructive methods and then hope or try to define and exclaim our failures as something else, we pass the buck without examining our own responsibility within those failures: That has to stop now.

I will tell you why we failed, we are not trusted – the people of the country don’t trust us, that can be for a million reasons, of course the mainstream media barrage against our ideas and figures is a major part but we ourselves have done little to earn their trust.

The London activist bubble, and hardened and great comrades up and down the country, many of whom I respect fo their services to the movement have got locked into a paradigm which is no longer beneficial to the left movement, the strategy no longer serves us. This can be seen in our falling power and popularity, and general standing – the trend is not good for the left.

Left Unity a party that is fighting for the many, fighting for the majority yet it is manned by a skeleton crew – why is that? Why are we irrelevant? in an age of such despair, why are we not a beacon of hope? Why are we not cutting through the forces of austerity with our sword of socialism? Why are people up and down the country not singing our praises as we stand shoulder to shoulder with them against the full brunt of this capitalist onslaught?

The common thread of community struggle, the glue that holds society together and creates an effective network for people to organise and resist attempts to attack and destroy the things we hold dear, has been eroded and destroyed over successive generations. Now we must work to rebuild these lost links and remember that which is being forgotten and lost.

Most importantly we have to earn the peoples trust and we are not going to do that with words, only with actions will the people be emboldened to fight, only through actions will people have the courage to stand against austerity and only in the fires of action will the weapons against this system be forged.

Another debate, another protest, another time – these methods do have their place, and must be used, they serve a purpose. We are not however doing what needs to be done around these, we need to get into communities and fight against austerity not with words but deeds!

Starving to death? Well people should know that Left Unity will not let you starve to death, it will feed your family – it will keep you alive. Freezing to death? Well people should know that Left Unity will not let you freeze because of a cold heartless government – it will keep you warm.

All we are hearing is words, we need to change the direction and outlook we have on what political activity means. We talk the talk, we talk tough – yet ultimately it falls on deaf ears because we are not walking their walk. You can talk about austerity from your heated home, your lovely three bedroom house, but to someone who has hunger in their belly, they want more than inspiring words.

There is merit in standing in elections, however we invested 18 or so thousands of pounds in our election effort, in a time when people are starving to death, thousands of people dying because of planned austerity measures, planned poverty – this investment should of gone on people, not polls.

We invested so much, for what return? What gain did we get on our investment? Very little. We could of showed solidarity with the people of this country, we could of begun a program to fight austerity in this country, instead we chose the tried and failed route of electoral politics first, and ultimately we are now going to pay the price – I only hope the price is not the most cruellest one to pay, that of our own demise.

Elections have their time and place, they serve a purpose – local elections are cost effective ways of campaigning and highlighting an issue within local communities and building links within local communities. Local must come first if we are to have any hope of achieving anything, it has to start at the bottom – we have to start at the bottom,.

Even if you go down the electoral strategy route, there was no strategic planning in placing candidates all over the place, diffusing our limited resources and isolating our many skirmishes and battles. If elections were a war, we spread our armies too thin and then paid the ultimate price – defeat.

There is hope for the future, there is hope for Left Unity but we have to get our priorities straight, we have to change – the left has to adapt and change to meet the current needs of the people. We need to be backing up our intellect with our actions, one without the other is meaningless.

In the end we need to not only say we want change, we need to display what change means, we need to showcase socialism, we need to put socialism into action, as the saying goes “socialism, the radical idea of sharing” – It is time socialism is taken to the streets!

This week we have heard how Sally Keeble turned down a nice little one thousand pound gift from ex-pm Tony Blair, though not the only one to turn down the money, we would be fooling ourselves if we thought this had anything to do with a principled stance of the ex-pm.

Her Blairite credentials go even deeper than this, when she started throwing punches at the new PM Gordon Brown, sticking the knife into him only 18 months after he became PM. As we now know there was a legendary feud between Blair and Brown, so it doesn’t take genius to work out which side of the fence she sat on.

Sally voted for the war in Iraq, so it makes no sense for her turning the money down over that, so what other reasons does she have for saying no? Maybe, a political stunt in order to try and distance herself from a government she was in bed with.

It would be unfair of me to not say why Sally Keeble herself told us she turned down the money, it was because:“I actually believe that British Politics, and particularly at election time, should be funded very clearly by British money.”

Her refusal then serves two purposes, it is a rather obvious attempt to distance herself from brand Blair, and a more subtle attempt to appear nationalistic to try and poach some UKIP voters.

So there you have it according to Sally, British elections need to be fought with “British money”, we can assume she only wants British people being members of the Labour party in Northampton, not to mention the Trade Unions, hopefully she will vote against and fight against any donations from multinational corporations to the Labour party (like hell she will).

This is far from being some kind of grand gesture or some kind of principled stance, Tony Blair could keep his money because Sally already has his principles. Hopefully the people of Northampton won’t be fooled by this shameful and spineless ploy, Sally was at the time and still is a shameless Blairite.